A SHOCK survey has shown the scale of the inactivity academic in the North-East.

The survey of North-East parents showed that nearly half of their children did as little as 40 minutes or less exercise in a typical weekday.

The Government recommends that children and teenagers undertake a minimum of an hour of exercise a day.

The survey, carried out by YouGov on behalf of Sustrans, asked parents of five – 16-year -olds about the amount of exercise their child gets during the school week and what their main concerns would be if their child was not getting enough exercise.

Of the parents surveyed, over half (52 per cent) said that they were chiefly concerned about their child putting on excess weight, as a result of being physically inactive.

A further 30 per cent said their main concern would be their child developing health problems such as cancer, heart disease or diabetes

When asked how they could increase the amount of exercise that their child took, 43 per cent thought that walking, cycling, scooting and skating could be incorporated into their routines as part of the journey to school.

The survey comes at the start of The Big Pedal, a competition for primary and secondary schools run by Sustrans, which encourages families to cycle and scoot to school over 10 days.

Sustrans regional Director for the North- East , Bryn Dowson said: “Today’s children are the least physically active in history, and set to have shorter life expectancies than their parents because of this. The most effective way to tackle the physical inactivity crisis among young people is to incorporate exercise into their daily routines by cycling and scooting to school.”

Last year over 120 schools in the North-East took part in The Big Pedal and pupils, parents and brothers and sisters made over 120,000 trips to school on their bikes and scooters.